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Unless the change is shutting down perfectly good nuclear power plants[1]. The energy transition in Germany has been handled horribly for reasons I can't unders

Unless the change is shutting down perfectly good nuclear power plants[1]. The energy transition in Germany has been handled horribly for reasons I can't understand. [1] https://www.base.bund.de/en/nuclear-safety/nuclear-phase-out/nuclear-phase-out_content.html https://www.base.bund.de/en/nuclear-safety/nuclear-phase-out...

pydry 1y ago
It's wild how much shit Germany got for turning off gas, coal and nuclear power plants (which comprised about ~8% of their power) while Poland running on ~80-90% coal for decades without changing anything was nbd. It's almost as if the outrage was astroturfed into existence by the nuclear lobby using similar tactics to the oil lobby.
- oblio 1y ago
  Poland was much poorer and less significant economically.
  - pydry 1y ago
    No, Germany drew negative attention precisely because it was turning off coal plants - without nuclear power.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  It's the fossil lobby directly. You never hear someone complain about Germany's nuclear exit and then pivot into "but at least they're doing well with renewables and they should do better and go faster on EVs and electrification of heat" which would make sense for someone who had a strange affection for nuclear tech, particularly those last two which work great with nuclear. What you do see is people absolutely seething about leftists and environmentalists and renewables who only have one just barely socially acceptable outlet to attack Germany on. But they attack them not because their decarbonisation is slow but because they were clear leaders in the tech that threatens fossil fuels around the globe. Making it seem like a failure is a good way to slow down that transition in other countries too.
  - CalRobert 1y ago
    But they’re doing badly with ev’s and have pushed the EU to water down rules against ICE cars. Never mind that Germany has been pretty bad for people who want to bike instead of needing a car.
    - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
      Yes, that's my point. But it's not leftists and environmentalists to blame for delays on those, so apparently the nuclear bros don't care. Which would be weird if they weren't misrepresenting their concerns. Or at least trying to. It's all very transparent.
arkh 1y ago
> The energy transition in Germany has been handled horribly for reasons I can't understand. Former East German political agents still working for Russia.
- coliveira 1y ago
  Hey, it was West Germany's idea to bring all these people. Now they cannot complain about this obvious and natural result. It is irrational to think that everyone there has the obligation to hate Russia just as the West does.
- linksnapzz 1y ago
  The lack of de-Stastification after reunification was at least as big a mistake as a lack of de-Nazification after '45 would've been.
immibis 1y ago
It's because it was done by politicians who work for Russia, which makes a lot of money supplying Germany with natural gas. Corruption in Germany is usually quite obvious.
ACCount37 1y ago
Germany and piss poor energy policy - name a more iconic duo. The way I understand it, Germany had a horrid mix of anti-nuclear eco-activists, local coal lobbyists and Gazprom's natural gas lobbyists. The politicians not included in any of the above were too toothless, and couldn't fight through this bullshit and secure good outcomes regardless.
- Qwertious 1y ago
  The problem was "compromise" - essentially as part of forming government the Greens and the CDU (Angela Merkel's party) agreed to an energy policy where they would phase out nuclear and replace it with a fuckton of renewables. But the actual govt did only the former without the latter (despite the previous agreement and the Greens' protest of Where Are The Fucking Renewables), thus leaving only coal and gas. Leaving nuclear in place would be good, going heavily into renewables would also be good, but doing neither would be idiotic, and somehow that's what they did.
  - MagnumOpus 1y ago
    This is very much wrong. The Greens were never in a coalition with CDU/Merkel. (Merkel was in coalitions with the SPD/Social Democrats and FDP/Liberals.) Greens were in a coalition with the Social Democrats led by Chancellor Schroeder; Schroeder agreed to the Greens’ demands for nuclear exit and negotiated a board role at Gazprom for himself after his political career. Merkel initially wanted to reverse or freeze the exit timeline but bowed to public opinion to continue it once the tsunami hit Japan.
    - ACCount37 1y ago
      Yep, this is what I meant by "anti-nuclear eco-activists", "Gazprom oil lobbyists" and "toothless politicians" respectively.
- hvb2 1y ago
  > Germany and piss poor energy policy - name a more iconic duo. I mean not always, they put feed in tarifs for solar in law at the end of the 90s. This led to a huge boom in solar production and it made the Germans very big in solar panel production. Unfortunately, like all other countries they were eventually outproduced by china. This model has been copied in a lot of places afterwards and only when a mature market for solar exists does it stop working (it becomes a subsidy for people that produce paid for by people that don't).
CalRobert 1y ago
They were scared after Fukushima, a nuclear disaster that if anything showed how resilient nukes can be compared to coal, which just gets away with killing thousands of people quietly. Perhaps they’re better at vibes than they are at maths.
- MagnumOpus 1y ago
  The nuclear exit was started 10 years before that - mostly also because of vibes: the Green Party became junior coalition partner in the government for the first time, and the greens had a longstanding anti-nuclear stance from their roots in the 1970s anti-nuclear weapons movement… They pushed for the nuclear exit. When the conservatives regained power, they vowed to cancel and stop the exit timeline, but then came Fukushima and an irrational media panic - and Merkel did what she does best.
  - pydry 1y ago
    Vibes, chernobyl and also the absurd cost of nuclear power. Poland is building nuclear power now though, after decades of burning epic amounts of coal (~85% of their electricity output). This is most likely coz it provides a route to creating a nuclear weapon in a hurry "just in case". It isnt cost effective for them for any other purpose.
    - CalRobert 1y ago
      Well they saw what happened to a nuclear free Ukraine
    - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
      > Poland generated 54% of electricity from coal in 2024, down from 70% just 2 years ago https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/poland/ https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/poland/ They keep putting their nuclear switch on date backwards (2040 now I think?) but renewables have been taking big chunks out of the problem and will continue to do so.
  - jajko 1y ago

pydry 1y ago

It's wild how much shit Germany got for turning off gas, coal and nuclear power plants (which comprised about ~8% of their power) while Poland running on ~80-90% coal for decades without changing anything was nbd. It's almost as if the outrage was astroturfed into existence by the nuclear lobby using similar tactics to the oil lobby.

oblio 1y ago
Poland was much poorer and less significant economically.
- pydry 1y ago
  No, Germany drew negative attention precisely because it was turning off coal plants - without nuclear power.
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
It's the fossil lobby directly. You never hear someone complain about Germany's nuclear exit and then pivot into "but at least they're doing well with renewables and they should do better and go faster on EVs and electrification of heat" which would make sense for someone who had a strange affection for nuclear tech, particularly those last two which work great with nuclear. What you do see is people absolutely seething about leftists and environmentalists and renewables who only have one just barely socially acceptable outlet to attack Germany on. But they attack them not because their decarbonisation is slow but because they were clear leaders in the tech that threatens fossil fuels around the globe. Making it seem like a failure is a good way to slow down that transition in other countries too.
- CalRobert 1y ago
  But they’re doing badly with ev’s and have pushed the EU to water down rules against ICE cars. Never mind that Germany has been pretty bad for people who want to bike instead of needing a car.
  - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
    Yes, that's my point. But it's not leftists and environmentalists to blame for delays on those, so apparently the nuclear bros don't care. Which would be weird if they weren't misrepresenting their concerns. Or at least trying to. It's all very transparent.

arkh 1y ago

> The energy transition in Germany has been handled horribly for reasons I can't understand. Former East German political agents still working for Russia.

coliveira 1y ago
Hey, it was West Germany's idea to bring all these people. Now they cannot complain about this obvious and natural result. It is irrational to think that everyone there has the obligation to hate Russia just as the West does.
linksnapzz 1y ago
The lack of de-Stastification after reunification was at least as big a mistake as a lack of de-Nazification after '45 would've been.

immibis 1y ago

It's because it was done by politicians who work for Russia, which makes a lot of money supplying Germany with natural gas. Corruption in Germany is usually quite obvious.

ACCount37 1y ago

Germany and piss poor energy policy - name a more iconic duo. The way I understand it, Germany had a horrid mix of anti-nuclear eco-activists, local coal lobbyists and Gazprom's natural gas lobbyists. The politicians not included in any of the above were too toothless, and couldn't fight through this bullshit and secure good outcomes regardless.

Qwertious 1y ago
The problem was "compromise" - essentially as part of forming government the Greens and the CDU (Angela Merkel's party) agreed to an energy policy where they would phase out nuclear and replace it with a fuckton of renewables. But the actual govt did only the former without the latter (despite the previous agreement and the Greens' protest of Where Are The Fucking Renewables), thus leaving only coal and gas. Leaving nuclear in place would be good, going heavily into renewables would also be good, but doing neither would be idiotic, and somehow that's what they did.
- MagnumOpus 1y ago
  This is very much wrong. The Greens were never in a coalition with CDU/Merkel. (Merkel was in coalitions with the SPD/Social Democrats and FDP/Liberals.) Greens were in a coalition with the Social Democrats led by Chancellor Schroeder; Schroeder agreed to the Greens’ demands for nuclear exit and negotiated a board role at Gazprom for himself after his political career. Merkel initially wanted to reverse or freeze the exit timeline but bowed to public opinion to continue it once the tsunami hit Japan.
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    Yep, this is what I meant by "anti-nuclear eco-activists", "Gazprom oil lobbyists" and "toothless politicians" respectively.
hvb2 1y ago
> Germany and piss poor energy policy - name a more iconic duo. I mean not always, they put feed in tarifs for solar in law at the end of the 90s. This led to a huge boom in solar production and it made the Germans very big in solar panel production. Unfortunately, like all other countries they were eventually outproduced by china. This model has been copied in a lot of places afterwards and only when a mature market for solar exists does it stop working (it becomes a subsidy for people that produce paid for by people that don't).

CalRobert 1y ago

They were scared after Fukushima, a nuclear disaster that if anything showed how resilient nukes can be compared to coal, which just gets away with killing thousands of people quietly. Perhaps they’re better at vibes than they are at maths.

MagnumOpus 1y ago
The nuclear exit was started 10 years before that - mostly also because of vibes: the Green Party became junior coalition partner in the government for the first time, and the greens had a longstanding anti-nuclear stance from their roots in the 1970s anti-nuclear weapons movement… They pushed for the nuclear exit. When the conservatives regained power, they vowed to cancel and stop the exit timeline, but then came Fukushima and an irrational media panic - and Merkel did what she does best.
- pydry 1y ago
  Vibes, chernobyl and also the absurd cost of nuclear power. Poland is building nuclear power now though, after decades of burning epic amounts of coal (~85% of their electricity output). This is most likely coz it provides a route to creating a nuclear weapon in a hurry "just in case". It isnt cost effective for them for any other purpose.
  - CalRobert 1y ago
    Well they saw what happened to a nuclear free Ukraine
  - ZeroGravitas 1y ago
    > Poland generated 54% of electricity from coal in 2024, down from 70% just 2 years ago https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/poland/ https://ember-energy.org/countries-and-regions/poland/ They keep putting their nuclear switch on date backwards (2040 now I think?) but renewables have been taking big chunks out of the problem and will continue to do so.
- jajko 1y ago